Xiaomi 12 review

MIUI 13 and Android 12

The Xiaomi 12 series are the first handsets to launch with the company's new MIUI 13 out of the box along with Android 12. A friendly reminder that MIUI updates are not tied to Google's OS version, which is kind of a good thing because Xiaomi often brings some of the latest Android features to its older phones using MIUI and without having to update to the next major Android version. It's also noteworthy that the Xiaomi 12X runs on Android 11 + MIUI 13 combo, probably due to the older Snapdragon 870 chipset. Some additional tweaking is needed before delivering Android 12 to the handset.

The new MIUI 13, however, isn't much different from the previous version in terms of UI design. If you are familiar with MIUI in general, you will find it easy to navigate. The separation between the notification panel and quick toggles is enabled by default this time around. The latter is called Control center and provides a more streamlined experience over the quick toggles.

Notification shade and quick toggles

As far as Android 12-intrinsic features go, Xiaomi seems to have missed on implementing some of them. The so-called Privacy Dashboard is nowhere to be found but you do get the option to choose between approximate and precise location sharing with apps. The green dot indicator when an app is accessing one of the cameras is also present. We also didn't find the reworked widget interface like the Chinese version of the ROM got. Then again, Xiaomi is yet to include notification history, a feature that came with Android 11, so they have a history of doing things differently.

Anyway, Xiaomi claims that MIUI has been reworked completely, even if you cannot tell that by the interface and its design alone - it looks and feels just like MIUI 12. But the new version reportedly focuses on improving resource distribution and should handle processor, RAM and storage usage better and smarter.

For example, MIUI 13 is supposed to keep track of the current use of the processor and RAM and suspend any currently unnecessary tasks to free resources and offer more fluid performance. Xiaomi promises a background process efficiency increase of up to 40% compared to the previous version.

Liquid storage is what sounds really cool and relevant for modern smartphones. Xiaomi says that in most phones the storage performance is halved in 36 months due to inefficient storage management. And this is where MIUI 13 comes - it offers 60% better defragmentation efficiency than MIUI 12 and different competitors. So the storage performance drop in 36 months should be merely 5% by their accounts. This sounds impressive, so here is hoping this feature lives up to the hype.

The final optimization done within MIUI's core is power management - the new version's optimization should lead to a 10% drop in the power consumption compared to MIUI 12's.

There is also an improved Smart Toolbox (a.k.a. Sidebar) for even more fluid multi-tasking with pop-up apps. And the privacy has been improved with a number of features, some of which unique.

Smart Tooblox

That's the general stuff dealt with, so let's see what MIUI 13 looks like on the Xiaomi 12. Always-on display is supported and you can have it show up for 5 seconds after you tap on the screen, set a scheduled time interval, or have it on all the time. There are a lot of AOD themes you can choose from and some of those can also be customized.

What used to be called Breathing light is now called the Notification effect in MIUI 13. It can work with or without Always-on Display. Basically, that's a fancier version of the notification LED that uses the edges of the display - they flash with colors upon new notifications. You can choose the lockscreen clock style, too.

Always-on display and Breathing light

The fingerprint reader is fast and reliable, no complaints there. Xiaomi's had this feature where if you press and hold on the fingerprint reader, shortcuts appear after unlocking which is a handy way of accessing stuff almost immediately from the lockscreen. We've seen similar implementation on OnePlus' OxygenOS and most recently, on Realme's Realme UI 3.0. Sadly the only two shortcuts available here are a QR code scanner and a search tool that launches the Mi browser, and we found no way to customize those.

Fingerprint reader features

The home screens are business as usual - they are populated with shortcuts, folders, and widgets. The leftmost pane, if enabled, is Google's Discover.

MIUI 13 offers an app drawer, and it automatically organizes your apps into categories. The first is All, meaning it contains all apps. Then follow Communication, Entertainment, Photography, Tools, News, and Business. You can edit these categories or even disable them altogether. We are particularly fond of Xiaomi's decision to move the search bar to the bottom edge of the display so it's easier to reach with your thumb. It's not new, but it's noteworthy.

Xiaomi's approach with the recent apps menu is also different. For some time now, MIUI's app switcher has the windows arranged vertically with two per row instead of the usual carousel-style scroller. You can choose a regular-looking task switcher if you're not a fan of MIUI's.

Home screen, recent apps, app drawer

Themes have always been a huge part of MIUI, and they are available on MIUI 13, too. You can download new ones from the Themes store, and they can change wallpapers, ringtones, system icons, and even the always-on display style.

Themes and other UI customizations

And speaking of memory, MIUI 13 offers a Memory Extension option that's active by default (you can disable it if you like). It reserves 3GB of internal storage that serves as RAM extension. Less important memory blocks should come here.

As always, we find the MIUI experience quite mature, highly customizable and snappy. If you've used MIUI before, you will feel right at home with this iteration as there are no major changes. Some minor tweaks contributed to the overall nice experience. The new haptic feedback behavior, for example, is super neat. Most of the interactions with the UI, the typing and the fingerprint use are all complemented with crisp and pleasant haptic feedback.

Synthetic benchmarks and sustained performance

Naturally, the Xiaomi 12 comes with Qualcomm's latest and greatest - the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 manufactured on Samsung's 4nm node. The SoC uses an octa-core CPU consisting of 1x main Cortex-X2 core that runs at 3.0 GHz, aided by 3x Cortex-A710 cores ticking at 2.5 GHz, plus a third cluster of 4x Cortex-A510 cores at 1.8 GHz for less demanding tasks to preserve energy. The Adren 730 GPU takes care of graphically-intensive tasks.

The memory configurations are three in total - 8GB/128GB, 8GB/256GB and 12GB/256GB all of which use UFS 3.1 storage.

Here's our usual round of synthetic benchmark tests to see how it fares against the competition and check if there are any performance inconsistencies compared to other Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 implementations.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9 Pro
  3708
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  3682
• Xiaomi 12
  3652
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  3528
• Realme GT2 Pro
  3501
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  3489
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  3238
• Xiaomi 12X
  3168
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  3049
• Xiaomi 11T
  2834

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Realme GT2 Pro
  1238
• iQOO 9 Pro
  1231
• Xiaomi 12
  1187
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  1169
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  1165
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  1096
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  1085
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  1032
• Xiaomi 12X
  943
• Xiaomi 11T
  742

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• iQOO 9 Pro
  997948
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  985226
• Xiaomi 12
  985115
• Realme GT2 Pro
  966251
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  886916
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  719696
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  714395
• Xiaomi 11T
  590837

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 12
  59
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  51
• Realme GT2 Pro
  39
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  37
• iQOO 9 Pro
  37
• Xiaomi 11T
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  29
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  24

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Realme GT2 Pro
  46
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  45
• Xiaomi 12
  45
• iQOO 9 Pro
  44
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  34
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  25
• Xiaomi 11T
  20
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  14

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 12
  75
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  68
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  56
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  54
• Realme GT2 Pro
  48
• Xiaomi 12X
  47
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  46
• iQOO 9 Pro
  46
• Xiaomi 11T
  40
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  33

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  96
• Realme GT2 Pro
  95
• iQOO 9 Pro
  95
• Xiaomi 12
  84
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  76
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  67
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  57
• Xiaomi 12X
  55
• Xiaomi 11T
  47

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9 Pro
  9673
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  9664
• Xiaomi 12
  9535
• Realme GT2 Pro
  9487
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  7405
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  5673
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  5432
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  5412
• Xiaomi 11T
  4172

We see no major deviations from other Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered phones and the CPU and GPU results are consistent. You may notice that the handset is doing better in some onscreen synthetic loads compared to the Xiaomi 12 Pro and that's due to the resolution. The Xiaomi 12 renders at a lower 1080p resolution while the 12 Pro's native screen resolution is 1440p. The same goes for the Realme GT2 Pro.

Compared to Samsung's top-tier Exynos 2200 SoC, the SD8G1 is a hair better in CPU-bound tests but takes a more convincing lead in the GPU department.

Sustained performance

Despite its compact size, the Xiaomi 12 boasts a rather big cooling pad that helps with heat dissipation. The company claims that the handset holds a 2,600mm2 vapor chamber and 10,000mm2 graphite for some additional help to the vapor chamber. However, our stress tests don't suggest the cooling solution is a working one.

We ran our usual CPU throttle test for an hour and before the 15-minute mark, the system throttled down the CPU to about 60% of the maximum performance. And it remained there for the next 45 minutes relatively stable and 57% is the lowest point of which the CPU throttled. The frame was the hottest part of the phone, you could barely hold it.

CPU throttle test: 30 min • 60 min

After the phone rested for a while and temperatures returned back to normal, we ran the 3DMark Wild Life stress test, which is mostly GPU-heavy. To our surprise, the handset wasn't able to run all loops and the system shut down the app several times to prevent hardware damage. We weren't able to complete the test while the side frame was unbearably hot.

It's important to note that the stress tests we do aren't a representation of real-life use. No game would utilize the CPU and GPU at 100% for such long periods of time. But it's a good benchmark for us to consider when assessing sustained performance.